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w1zard wrote:
Even accounting for the thin profile and large engines, 300,000 crew is nowhere near enough.

But it’s ‘enough’ that is the operative word there. We’re not necessarily trying to figure out how many crew CAN for aboard, but how many is a sensible number to run the ship at full complement.

As a comparison, the biggest supertankers we have today are within ⅓ to ½ a km in length, but only have 25-30 crew to run safely, because the main purpose of the ship is as a transport. We could expect similar of SW or Imperial ships, given that we probably don’t count the Stormtrooper regiments or Imperial Guard regiments they can definitely fit insiders as ‘crew’.

Even big machinery doesn’t necessarily need more crew to operate, if it’s the size of the machinery that makes the engines big rather than the complexity of components. I mean, the Death Star laser seems to require km of giant focus ‘barrel’ space, but only two little guys standing dangerously close to the beam to actually operate it.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Even accounting for the thin profile and large engines, 300,000 crew is nowhere near enough.

But it’s ‘enough’ that is the operative word there. We’re not necessarily trying to figure out how many crew CAN for aboard, but how many is a sensible number to run the ship at full complement.

As a comparison, the biggest supertankers we have today are within ⅓ to ½ a km in length, but only have 25-30 crew to run safely, because the main purpose of the ship is as a transport. We could expect similar of SW or Imperial ships, given that we probably don’t count the Stormtrooper regiments or Imperial Guard regiments they can definitely fit insiders as ‘crew’.

Even big machinery doesn’t necessarily need more crew to operate, if it’s the size of the machinery that makes the engines big rather than the complexity of components. I mean, the Death Star laser seems to require km of giant focus ‘barrel’ space, but only two little guys standing dangerously close to the beam to actually operate it.

Also droids. lots and lots of droids.

 Desubot wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Even accounting for the thin profile and large engines, 300,000 crew is nowhere near enough.

But it’s ‘enough’ that is the operative word there. We’re not necessarily trying to figure out how many crew CAN for aboard, but how many is a sensible number to run the ship at full complement.

As a comparison, the biggest supertankers we have today are within ⅓ to ½ a km in length, but only have 25-30 crew to run safely, because the main purpose of the ship is as a transport. We could expect similar of SW or Imperial ships, given that we probably don’t count the Stormtrooper regiments or Imperial Guard regiments they can definitely fit insiders as ‘crew’.

Even big machinery doesn’t necessarily need more crew to operate, if it’s the size of the machinery that makes the engines big rather than the complexity of components. I mean, the Death Star laser seems to require km of giant focus ‘barrel’ space, but only two little guys standing dangerously close to the beam to actually operate it.

Also droids. lots and lots of droids.

which can apply to 40k through serviators as well

 ArbitorIan wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Even accounting for the thin profile and large engines, 300,000 crew is nowhere near enough.

But it’s ‘enough’ that is the operative word there. We’re not necessarily trying to figure out how many crew CAN for aboard, but how many is a sensible number to run the ship at full complement.

As a comparison, the biggest supertankers we have today are within ⅓ to ½ a km in length, but only have 25-30 crew to run safely, because the main purpose of the ship is as a transport. We could expect similar of SW or Imperial ships, given that we probably don’t count the Stormtrooper regiments or Imperial Guard regiments they can definitely fit insiders as ‘crew’.

Even big machinery doesn’t necessarily need more crew to operate, if it’s the size of the machinery that makes the engines big rather than the complexity of components. I mean, the Death Star laser seems to require km of giant focus ‘barrel’ space, but only two little guys standing dangerously close to the beam to actually operate it.

No, you aren't understanding the scales involved and how big a 19KM battleship is.

Let me modify my original numbers for an SSD.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Super rough numbers here, but lets take as estimate for the volume of a Nimitz (numbers from wikipedia). 333*77*20 is roughly 512,820 cubic meters. With a crew of 6,000 this is 85.47 cubic meters per crewman.

Compare this to the rough volume of a Super Star Destroyer... 19KM long and using proportional height and width to the aircraft carrier. 19,000*4,393*1,141 is roughly 95,235,847,000 cubic meters. The crew is 300,000. This means that there is 317,452 cubic meters per crewman.

A Super Star Destroyer is roughly 3,715 times less crowded than a Nimitz aircraft carrier. For perspective, there would be 2 crewmen on the entirety of the Nimitz if that were to transfer over.

Now, lets do something crazy and assume that 90% of the internal space of the star destroyer is taken up by engines, weapons, shields etc... 90 freaking percent. That means there is a total of 9,523,584,700 cubic meters of usable internal space, and roughly 31,775 cubic meters per crewman. Congratulations, the SSD is now roughly 372 times less crowded then an aircraft carrier. For perspective, there would be 16 crewmen on the entirety of the Nimitz if that were to transfer over.

A Super Star Destroyer with 90% of its internal space rendered unusable due to engines, weapons, etc could have a crew of 111,600,000 before it felt as crowded as an aircraft carrier.

Square cubed law is a b****.

w1zard wrote:
No, you aren't understanding the scales involved and how big a 19KM battleship is.

Let me modify my original numbers for an SSD.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Super rough numbers here, but lets take as estimate for the volume of a Nimitz (numbers from wikipedia). 333*77*20 is roughly 512,820 cubic meters. With a crew of 6,000 this is 85.47 cubic meters per crewman.

Compare this to the rough volume of a Super Star Destroyer... 19KM long and using proportional height and width to the aircraft carrier. 19,000*4,393*1,141 is roughly 95,235,847,000 cubic meters. The crew is 300,000. This means that there is 317,452 cubic meters per crewman.
[..]
A Super Star Destroyer with 90% of its internal space rendered unusable due to engines, weapons, etc could have a crew of 111,600,000 before it felt as crowded as an aircraft carrier.

Square cubed law is a b****.

Uhmmm, yearh likewise.
Comparing a SSD to a carrier is a moot comparison, a carrier is a specialized ship, with only 1 task, to carry airplanes, other ships are specialized too with destroyers, cruisers and battleships each their role, where a SSD are multirole.

Further your equation lacks the notion of engines for void shields, engines to power cannons, storage of deployable vehicles, civilian crew, entertainers, administrators, housing for diplomats etc etc.

HexHammer wrote:

w1zard wrote:
No, you aren't understanding the scales involved and how big a 19KM battleship is.

Let me modify my original numbers for an SSD.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Super rough numbers here, but lets take as estimate for the volume of a Nimitz (numbers from wikipedia). 333*77*20 is roughly 512,820 cubic meters. With a crew of 6,000 this is 85.47 cubic meters per crewman.

Compare this to the rough volume of a Super Star Destroyer... 19KM long and using proportional height and width to the aircraft carrier. 19,000*4,393*1,141 is roughly 95,235,847,000 cubic meters. The crew is 300,000. This means that there is 317,452 cubic meters per crewman.
[..]
A Super Star Destroyer with 90% of its internal space rendered unusable due to engines, weapons, etc could have a crew of 111,600,000 before it felt as crowded as an aircraft carrier.

Square cubed law is a b****.

Uhmmm, yearh likewise.
Comparing a SSD to a carrier is a moot comparison, a carrier is a specialized ship, with only 1 task, to carry airplanes, other ships are specialized too with destroyers, cruisers and battleships each their role, where a SSD are multirole.

Further your equation lacks the notion of engines for void shields, engines to power cannons, storage of deployable vehicles, civilian crew, entertainers, administrators, housing for diplomats etc etc.

yeah but a SSD does fill a carrier role.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I think that passage shows exactly how the writers do not grasp the implications of the scale. Tens of thousands of crew and troops! Really? 330 metres long Nimitz class aircraft carrier has over 6000 personnel. Ten kilometres long ship would have roughly 27 000 times the volume of Nimitz! So if we scale the crew accordingly, we would get something like 160 million!

How much of that interior space is machinery that is outright hostile to human life though? also how many servitors are aboard a ship? As I said earlier I've personally suspected warp drives are HUUUGE and make up a decent chunk of a ships interior.

Farsight flies a Coldstar inside one, so yeah, I'd say Warp Engines are fairly huge.

BrianDavion wrote:
yeah but a SSD does fill a carrier role.

"also" fill a carrier role.

HexHammer wrote:
Further your equation lacks the notion of engines for void shields, engines to power cannons, storage of deployable vehicles, civilian crew, entertainers, administrators, housing for diplomats etc etc.

What part of "I considered 90% of the internal space of the super star destroyer 'unusable' " didn't you get?

Even with 90% of the internal space of a super star destroyer filled with concrete, it can still hold over 100 million people without feeling as crowded as modern day navy ships.

I know it's hard to imagine, but a 19KM long battleship is mindbogglingly massive.

w1zard wrote:

HexHammer wrote:
Further your equation lacks the notion of engines for void shields, engines to power cannons, storage of deployable vehicles, civilian crew, entertainers, administrators, housing for diplomats etc etc.

What part of "I considered 90% of the internal space of the super star destroyer 'unusable' " didn't you get?

Even with 90% of the internal space of a super star destroyer filled with concrete, it can still hold over 100 million people without feeling as crowded as modern day navy ships.

I know it's hard to imagine, but a 19KM long battleship is mindbogglingly massive.

Considering how big cities filles up the landscape, adding military bases, etc I'd say a SSD can easily be filled up.

HexHammer wrote:
Considering how big cities filles up the landscape, adding military bases, etc I'd say a SSD can easily be filled up.

Big cities fill the landscape, because generally, most buildings don't go past 2 or 3 stories so there is more horizontal sprawl. Imagine a city where every building is 20-30 stories (or higher, assuming a story ~4 meters, a Super Star Destroyer would be 285 stories high, and that is the super "thin" profile!). You can cram a lot more people into a comparatively smaller space and still make it feel as though it isn't as crowded as a big city.

 Earth127 wrote:
I think SW won the game of stupid, implausible big with Starkiller and noone should even try to approach it.

What, a single planet? Nah. It's significantly smaller than any dyson sphere described in fiction. The three biggest things I can think of are two of the mecha from the aforementioned Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan, and Bolder's Ring from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence. The latter masses 10,000 times that of the Milky Way, and is ten million miles across. It's built as a fire escape from the universe.

w1zard wrote:

HexHammer wrote:
Considering how big cities filles up the landscape, adding military bases, etc I'd say a SSD can easily be filled up.

Big cities fill the landscape, because generally, most buildings don't go past 2 or 3 stories so there is more horizontal sprawl. Imagine a city where every building is 20-30 stories (or higher, assuming a story ~4 meters, a Super Star Destroyer would be 285 stories high, and that is the super "thin" profile!). You can cram a lot more people into a comparatively smaller space and still make it feel as though it isn't as crowded as a big city.

I spoke about more than just a city, but that are magically left out of your equation.

This is pretty cool

w1zard wrote:

HexHammer wrote:
Further your equation lacks the notion of engines for void shields, engines to power cannons, storage of deployable vehicles, civilian crew, entertainers, administrators, housing for diplomats etc etc.

What part of "I considered 90% of the internal space of the super star destroyer 'unusable' " didn't you get?

Even with 90% of the internal space of a super star destroyer filled with concrete, it can still hold over 100 million people without feeling as crowded as modern day navy ships.

I know it's hard to imagine, but a 19KM long battleship is mindbogglingly massive.

It is futile, I've tried this before in many threads, people just don't get it.

Me: 'It doesn't make sense that you could carry only four golf balls in a Jumbo Jet'
People: 'But you need to also bring the golf clubs and you golfing shoes, so it makes sense.'

Most people seem to be clinically unable to grasp the magnitude of the problem.

 Crimson wrote:


It is futile, I've tried this before in many threads, people just don't get it.

Me: 'It doesn't make sense that you could carry only four golf balls in a Jumbo Jet'
People: 'But you need to also bring the golf clubs and you golfing shoes, so it makes sense.'

Most people seem to be clinically unable to grasp the magnitude of the problem.

Or you're having the wrong conversation. Again, the point is not 'how many people CAN FIT on an Imperial Battlehip' but 'how many people are needed to run one'

You: 'It doesn't make sense that you could carry only four golf balls in a Jumbo Jet'
People: 'You can carry loads of golf balls on a Jumbo Jet, but we only need four'
You: 'Well, that's a very empty jumbo jet'
People: 'No, it's carrying a load of people, and a load of cargo, and the engines take up half the fuselage because they break into the Warp.'
You: 'You aren't grasping the magnitude of the problem - you can fit LOADS of golf balls in a Jumbo jet'
People: *sigh*

 Crimson wrote:
It is futile, I've tried this before in many threads, people just don't get it.

Me: 'It doesn't make sense that you could carry only four golf balls in a Jumbo Jet'
People: 'But you need to also bring the golf clubs and you golfing shoes, so it makes sense.'

Most people seem to be clinically unable to grasp the magnitude of the problem.

The gold course, the club house, the parking lots, housing for lawn mower, etc etc.

People doesn't think holistically, but clinically.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


Or you're having the wrong conversation. Again, the point is not 'how many people CAN FIT on an Imperial Battlehip' but 'how many people are needed to run one'

Have you ever seen the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook? Everything in these ships are operated by huge cadres of people. They're not some super automated things where a single crew member could wander in empty corridors for days without meeting anyone. These ships are depicted in art as being filled with people, but the numbers do not even remotely add up.

Maybe some of the crew numbers don’t count slaves and servotors. Maybe it only refers to skilled crew members, not the masses of folk turning big wheels.

 Crimson wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:


Or you're having the wrong conversation. Again, the point is not 'how many people CAN FIT on an Imperial Battlehip' but 'how many people are needed to run one'

Spoiler:

Have you ever seen the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook? Everything in these ships are operated by huge cadres of people. They're not some super automated things where a single crew member could wander in empty corridors for days without meeting anyone. These ships are depicted in art as being filled with people, but the numbers do not even remotely add up.

I think part of the problem here is that the concentration of people isn't going to be equal within the entire volume of the vessel, like you seem to be assuming. Sure, parts of the ship, some of the decks, based on their function, are going to be overcrowded and filled with hoards of people/serfs/slaves, etc. But, significant other areas and spaces are going to be very thin on people and filled with other things; such as engines, fuel, supplies, equipment, food & water, and cargo. Also, the upper/high class decks for officers, commanders, etc are probably much more spacious and luxuriant, with plenty of extra space for amenities and comforts, with very little-to-no crowding, vs. the lower decks packed to the brim with labourers/serfs/slaves, etc. Also the thought that slaves might not even be numbered as "crew" is a fair point and entirely possible.

 Anfauglir wrote:

I think part of the problem here is that the concentration of people isn't going to be equal within the entire volume of the vessel, like you seem to be assuming. Sure, parts of the ship, some of the decks, based on their function, are going to be overcrowded and filled with hoards of people/serfs/slaves, etc. But, significant other areas and spaces are going to very thin on people and filled with other things; such as engines, fuel, supplies, equipment, food & water, and cargo. Also, the upper/high class decks for officers, commanders, etc are probably much more spacious and luxuriant, with plenty of extra space for amenities and comforts, with very little-to-no crowding, vs. the lower decks packed to the brim with labourers/serfs/slaves, etc. Also the thought that slaves might not even be numbered as "crew" is a fair point and entirely possible.

But that has already been taken into account. I am not saying then kilometre Imperial battleship should have crew of 160 million (same crew density than on Nimitz, which by the way is not empty space occupied solely by crew quarters, it has engines, storage etc too), but even if there were hundred times the space per person (or 99% of the ship completely empty while the rest is packed) on such a ship compared to Nimitz, it would still have a crew of 1,6 million! Tens of thousands if completely absurdly off. The crew numbers for this size of ship should be in millions.

You're looking at the wrong numbers here.

The Super Star Destroyer is larger than the average Imperial cruiser. But the Galactic Empire had one Super Star Destroyer. The Imperium has so many Cruisers that it can lose them without any one even noticing.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
You're looking at the wrong numbers here.

No, I was referring my earlier math about ten kilometre long imperial ship.

And I was referring to something entirely different than your math.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
You're looking at the wrong numbers here.

The Super Star Destroyer is larger than the average Imperial cruiser. But the Galactic Empire had one Super Star Destroyer. The Imperium has so many Cruisers that it can lose them without any one even noticing.

Multiple Super Star Destroyers were manufactured over the course of the galactic civil war, but that doesn't change the fact that Super Star Destroyers supposedly having a crew of 300,000 is laughable. You can check my math if you want.

I agree, in all likelyhood that a Super Star Destroyer would probably need less people per unit of volume to run than a modern day navy ship due to automation. So lets redo the math again shall we?

Let's say that 90 PERCENT of an SSD's volume is unusable due to hangars, weapons, shields, engines, etc. And lets say that even accounting for that, that the usable space of an SSD is 50 TIMES less crowded than a modern day aircraft carrier.

That would mean that a super star destroyer would have a usable volume of 9,523,584,700 cubic meters and would need a crew of 2,228,521 to run effectively. Even being extremely generous the numbers still don't match up.

Equation: (9,523,584,700/X)=(85.47)*(50) and solve for X

w1zard wrote:
Multiple Super Star Destroyers were manufactured over the course of the galactic civil war, but that doesn't change the fact that Super Star Destroyers supposedly having a crew of 300,000 is laughable. You can check my math if you want.

I agree, in all likelyhood that a Super Star Destroyer would probably need less people per unit of volume to run than a modern day navy ship due to automation. So lets redo the math again shall we?

Let's say that 90 PERCENT of an SSD's volume is unusable due to hangars, weapons, shields, engines, etc. And lets say that even accounting for that, that the usable space of an SSD is 50 TIMES less crowded than a modern day aircraft carrier.

That would mean that a super star destroyer would have a usable volume of 9,523,584,700 cubic meters and would need a crew of 2,228,521 to run effectively. Even being extremely generous the numbers still don't match up.

Equation: (9,523,584,700/X)=(85.47)*(50) and solve for X

SSD has much greater halls, passage ways etc than a carrier. Where a carrier has minimal interior space and a SSD has lavish interior space. So it seems the SSD has a factor of 8 of space per person to a carrier.

HexHammer wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Multiple Super Star Destroyers were manufactured over the course of the galactic civil war, but that doesn't change the fact that Super Star Destroyers supposedly having a crew of 300,000 is laughable. You can check my math if you want.

I agree, in all likelyhood that a Super Star Destroyer would probably need less people per unit of volume to run than a modern day navy ship due to automation. So lets redo the math again shall we?

Let's say that 90 PERCENT of an SSD's volume is unusable due to hangars, weapons, shields, engines, etc. And lets say that even accounting for that, that the usable space of an SSD is 50 TIMES less crowded than a modern day aircraft carrier.

That would mean that a super star destroyer would have a usable volume of 9,523,584,700 cubic meters and would need a crew of 2,228,521 to run effectively. Even being extremely generous the numbers still don't match up.

Equation: (9,523,584,700/X)=(85.47)*(50) and solve for X

SSD has much greater halls, passage ways etc than a carrier. Where a carrier has minimal interior space and a SSD has lavish interior space. So it seems the SSD has a factor of 8 of space per person to a carrier.

Only if the assumption of 90% of the space in the ship is non-useable, which is an absurdly inefficient way to design a ship (as w1zard has already said numerous times). No amount of extra lavish interiors can account for the huge volumes in a ship that size. It's pretty simple maths, with the problem being the scales are too vast to be easy to comprehend. To give you an example of how stupidly large the useable volume calculated above is, it's equivalent to the space taken up by the footprint of Greater London, to a height of around 6km above the streets (London is 1583000 sq/m). That's...insane. You can't account for such a low population density by saying the halls are a bit wider or taller. The maths is a bit more involved than I'm willing to do but I think to get the numbers to work your hallways would have to be the width of a motorway at the very least.

I'm really trying not to be condescending here, but if you're trying to justify these numbers it means you haven't understood the problem. It's not that surprising - the human brain doesn't do well when imagining distances over about a km or numbers more than a thousand, we're not really evolved for that kind of thinking.

Slipspace wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Multiple Super Star Destroyers were manufactured over the course of the galactic civil war, but that doesn't change the fact that Super Star Destroyers supposedly having a crew of 300,000 is laughable. You can check my math if you want.

I agree, in all likelyhood that a Super Star Destroyer would probably need less people per unit of volume to run than a modern day navy ship due to automation. So lets redo the math again shall we?

Let's say that 90 PERCENT of an SSD's volume is unusable due to hangars, weapons, shields, engines, etc. And lets say that even accounting for that, that the usable space of an SSD is 50 TIMES less crowded than a modern day aircraft carrier.

That would mean that a super star destroyer would have a usable volume of 9,523,584,700 cubic meters and would need a crew of 2,228,521 to run effectively. Even being extremely generous the numbers still don't match up.

Equation: (9,523,584,700/X)=(85.47)*(50) and solve for X

SSD has much greater halls, passage ways etc than a carrier. Where a carrier has minimal interior space and a SSD has lavish interior space. So it seems the SSD has a factor of 8 of space per person to a carrier.

Only if the assumption of 90% of the space in the ship is non-useable, which is an absurdly inefficient way to design a ship (as w1zard has already said numerous times). No amount of extra lavish interiors can account for the huge volumes in a ship that size. It's pretty simple maths, with the problem being the scales are too vast to be easy to comprehend. To give you an example of how stupidly large the useable volume calculated above is, it's equivalent to the space taken up by the footprint of Greater London, to a height of around 6km above the streets (London is 1583000 sq/m). That's...insane. You can't account for such a low population density by saying the halls are a bit wider or taller. The maths is a bit more involved than I'm willing to do but I think to get the numbers to work your hallways would have to be the width of a motorway at the very least.

I'm really trying not to be condescending here, but if you're trying to justify these numbers it means you haven't understood the problem. It's not that surprising - the human brain doesn't do well when imagining distances over about a km or numbers more than a thousand, we're not really evolved for that kind of thinking.

Its clear from the size comparison website and video's posted earlier that big ships are common in fact almost expected in Sci-fi shows. games etc. 40K is even on the smaller side compared to some - Halo, The Culture, etc etc

They are this big "because" - trying to find in universe justifications may be fun but ultimately fruitless.

 Mr Morden wrote:


Its clear from the size comparison website and video's posted earlier that big ships are common in fact almost expected in Sci-fi shows. games etc. 40K is even on the smaller side compared to some - Halo, The Culture, etc etc

They are this big "because" - trying to find in universe justifications may be fun but ultimately fruitless.

Absolutely. Almost certainly because making these ships a more reasonable size would make them seem kind of puny, even without the existence of some of the more ridiculously large ships we currently see in fiction. A 2km-long battleship would be vast, but not too far from what we can imagine so a lot of writers just write bigger and bigger numbers so as not to seem like they're underselling things.

I think a problem is that we're assuming a comparison between an aircraft carrier and a spaceship. A fairer comparison would be with something like a submarine, an enclosed airtight environment designed for extended periods away from base.

Say an Ohio class with a crew of 150, about 150m long, 12 wide and 10 tall. Lots of which is taken up with planetary bombardment weapons.

In which case W1zards numbers are out by a factor of.... 2.

GW is really bad a numbers. I once calculated that the population of a hiveworld should be able to breathe the oxygen out of the atmosphere within a century.